The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and relevant links.

Jupiter, Ganymede and Io Sequence

Jupiter now rides high in the night sky, so its fully illuminated. The characteristics of its heavily banded atmosphere and the movements of its four prominent satellites are easily visible in even a relatively small telescope, such as my 8 in (20 cm) Celestron. On the night of September 29, I captured the above sequence from the balcony of my home in Torino, Italy. This sequence shows not only Jupiter and its moons, Ganymede and Io, but also the shadow and subsequent transit of Io. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, is to the left of Jupiter. The time of this photo sequence is 14 minutes.

Jupiter is now approximately 370 million miles from Earth. It reaches opposition on October 28 when it'll be about 369 million miles distant -- its closest opposition until 2022.